Typically, the Mississippi Department of Corrections prefers to avoid disclosing its problems. So its recent announcement of a significant staff shortage is one sign that this problem is a serious one.
It certainly sounds that way. Corrections Commissioner Pelecia Hall said that more than half the inmates at MDOC’s prison in Leakesville are on lockdown due to a shortage of security officers to watch over them.
The Leakesville prison, which houses 3,000 inmates, has a staff vacancy rate of 48 percent. Two other large sites have a similar problem: 42 percent of the jobs are unfilled at the State Penitentiary at Parchman, as are 46 percent of those at MDOC’s Rankin County prison.
MDOC says it has a total of 671 security jobs vacant. Although that includes more locations than the three prisons, it’s a pretty telling signal that more people have decided that the safety risks of working in a prison aren’t worth the relatively low pay.
Hall wants the Legislature to spend $7 million more annually to raise the entry-level salary for prison guards from just below $25,000 to the $28,000 to $31,000 range. She may get her way on that, as the market is obviously telling lawmakers that the current salary is too low to recruit enough guards.
It’s saying the same thing, too, about teacher pay, where the starting salary is currently about $34,000 a year. There are plenty of unfilled education jobs across Mississippi, and enrollment in teacher education programs at universities around the state is down. Pay certainly is one reason for this.
Lawmakers this week floated their first proposal on teacher pay — a $500 raise for the next two years. The offer was met unenthusiastically by the teachers unions.
Chances are that’s just the opening bid. Lawmakers went into this election-year session expecting to give teachers a raise. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and the person he is hoping to succeed next year, Gov. Phil Bryant, have both endorsed the idea. They’re more than likely going to try to hit a sweet spot where teachers won’t feel insulted and the treasury won’t be overly pinched.
